1. Technical Field of the Invention
This invention relates to substrate processing apparatus and method for applying a designated treatment on substrates, for example, semiconductor wafers.
2. Description of the Related Art
Cleaning apparatuses of wet type are widely used in the semiconductor-devices manufacturing process. The wet-type cleaning apparatus applies designated treatments on the semiconductor wafers by using processing liquids, such as chemical liquids or pure water, in order to remove various contamination, for example, particles, organic pollutant, metallic impurities, etc., from the semiconductor wafers.
In such cleaning apparatus, the wafers contained in one or more carrier are removed therefrom and collectively held by a wafer holing arm, and then are submerged in a processing liquid stored in a process bath, in views of miniaturization of the cleaning bath and improvement in throughput. Such cleaning method is called xe2x80x9ccarrier-lessxe2x80x9d method, which is widely used in recent years.
In the carrier-less method, the wafers removed from two carriers are handled by the wafer holding arm at one time, for improving throughput. The wafers held by the wafer holding arm are spaced at regular intervals, which are half of the size of the intervals that exist when the wafers are held in the wafer carriers, in order to shorten the whole length of the row of the wafers for saving spaces in the apparatus.
In this method, which is disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2634350, first and second carriers each containing (N) pieces of wafers (N: number of wafers) are conveyed from the carrier loading/unloading section of the cleaning apparatus to the wafer loading/unloading section. In the wafer loading/unloading section, the wafers are removed from the first and second carriers. Then, the pitch changer, which is provided at the wafer loading/unloading section, inserts each of the wafers of a second group, which are removed from the second carrier, into the spaces between adjacent wafers of a first group, which are removed from the first carrier. Thereupon, (2N) pieces of wafers are arranged in a row and spaced at regular intervals, which are half of the size of the intervals that exist when the wafers are held in the first and second wafer carriers. The wafers thus arranged are held by the wafer holding arm, and conveyed to the cleaning section of the apparatus. After completion of the cleaning process, the cleaned wafers returned to the pitch changer to re-divide into the first and the second groups. The divided wafers are accommodated in the first and second carriers, and are conveyed to the carrier loading/unloading section.
In the apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 2634350, if the cleaned wafers and the not-cleaned wafers contained in the carriers reach to the wafer loading/unloading section at the same timing, one of the wafers (not-cleaned wafers) must stand-by near the wafer loading/unloading section, because the wafer loading/unloading section cannot handle the cleaned wafers and the not-cleaned wafers at one time. This adversary affects the throughput of the apparatus.
The present invention has been made to solve the aforesaid problems, and it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide substrate processing apparatus and method that can shortened a stand-by period, improving the throughput of the apparatus.
In order to attain the above objectives, according to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a substrate processing apparatus including: a container loading/unloading part for loading a container containing a plurality of substrates before processed and for unloading a container containing a plurality of substrates after processed; a processing part for applying a treatment on the substrates, which have been removed from the container; a substrate transporting part provided for transportation of the substrates between the container loading/unloading part and the processing part; and a stand-by part for temporarily storing the substrate, which have been removed from the container and are subjected to the transportation in the substrate transporting part.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a substrate processing apparatus including: a container loading/unloading part for loading a container containing a plurality of substrates before processed and for unloading a container containing a plurality of substrates after processed; a processing part for applying a treatment on the substrates, which have been removed from the container; a substrate arraying part, disposed between the container loading/unloading part and the processing part, for changing an arraying condition of the substrates between a first arraying condition which the substrates must be set in at the container loading/unloading part and a second arraying condition which the substrates must be set in at the processing part; a first transfer mechanism for conveying the substrates in the first arraying condition between the container loading/unloading part and the substrate arraying part; a second transfer mechanism for conveying the substrates in the second arraying condition between the substrate arraying part and the processing part; and a stand-by part for temporarily storing the substrate, which have been removed from the container and changed in the arraying condition thereof.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a substrate processing apparatus including: a substrate removing part for removing a plurality of substrates, to be processed, from a container, which contains the substrates spaced at regular intervals; a substrate arraying part for arranging the substrates, which have been removed from two containers, so that the substrates are spaced at regular intervals, which are half of the size of the intervals that exist when the substrates are contained in the container; a processing part for applying a treatment on the substrates; a transporting means for conveying the substrates arranged by the substrate arraying part, to the processing part; and a stand-by part for temporarily storing the substrate, which have been arranged by the substrate arraying part.
According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a substrate processing apparatus including: a container loading/unloading part for loading a container containing a plurality of substrates before processed and for unloading a container containing a plurality of substrates after processed; a substrate removing part for removing a plurality of substrates, to be processed, from a container, which contains the substrates spaced at regular intervals; a container transfer mechanism for conveying the container, containing the substrates therein, from the container loading/unloading part to the removing part; a substrate arraying part for arranging the substrates, which have been removed from two containers, so that the substrates are spaced at regular intervals, which are half of the size of the intervals that exist when the substrates are contained in the container; a processing part for applying a treatment on the substrates; a transfer means for conveying the substrates arranged by the substrate arraying part, to the processing part; and a stand-by part for temporarily storing the substrate, which have been arranged by the substrate arraying part.
According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a substrate processing method including the steps of: removing first substrates, to be processed, from two containers, in which the first substrates spaced at regular intervals are contained; arranging, at a substrate arraying part, the first substrates thus removed from said two containers, so that the first substrates are spaced at regular intervals, which are half of the size of the intervals that exist when the first substrates are contained in the container; making the first substrate thus arranged at the substrate arraying part to be temporarily and collectively stand by for transportation to a processing part; conveying second substrates, having been processed, from the processing part to the substrate arraying part, while the first substrates being kept to be stand by for the transportation to the processing part; accommodating the second substrates, having been processed, into two carriers; conveying the two containers in which the second substrates, having been processed, are thus contained; conveying the first substrates, which are stand by for transportation, to the processing part.